


Frodo

by SugdenLovesDingle



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugdenLovesDingle/pseuds/SugdenLovesDingle
Summary: Set about a year from now, the boys are married and live at Mill Cottage with Liv.based on a prompt I saw on tumblr a few days ago: Robert vs Liv's pet dog.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Robron/Emmerdale fic, be gentle with me!
> 
> Also, some creative liberty applies when it comes to Paddy in this fic, because I have no idea what his story really is when he's not involved in the Robron storyline.
> 
> for Dani who introduced me to Robron and picked out the name.

“Do you reckon they’ll let you keep it then?” Gabby asked, making herself comfortable on Liv’s bed.

“I don’t know. I hope so..” Liv replied. “I heard it might snow tonight. They can’t send it back out into the snow.”

 “Which one is the easiest to convince?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Liv shrugged “If I get one he’ll help me get the other.”  
  
Gabby nodded.  
  
“Actually.. I think Rob might be easiest. If I can convince him he’ll have Aaron on board in no time.”

“Ok so how do we get him?” Gabby asked. “He’s not allergic or anything right?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, Lachlan had a dog when he lived with them and he told me he grew up on a farm. They must’ve had a dog. Who lives on a farm and doesn’t have a dog?”

“Exactly. So we have to get him to like it.”

“He needs a name.” Liv decided. “He’ll be harder to kick out if he has a name. What about.. Frodo?”

Gabby made a face.

“Frodo?”

“Yeah we watched Lord of the Rings the other day, they both liked it.”

“I don’t know, he doesn’t look like a Frodo though does he?” Gabby said, scratching the dog lying next to her on Liv’s bed behind his ears.  
  
“You got a better idea then?”  
  
***  
  
“Aaron, wait, wait, wait! Don’t close the door! Full hands!”

Aaron turned around and smiled when he saw his husband rushing up the path to their house, carrying a few plastic bags.

“What’s all this then?” He asked, taking a bag from Robert.

“Food. Chinese. Didn’t feel like cooking.”

“Just for us or did you invite the rest of the village too?”

“It’s not that much.” Robert protested as he followed Aaron into their kitchen and put the bags on the counter.  “And between you and Liv, I’ll be lucky to get one spring roll.”

“Oh poor baby.” Aaron teased and wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist and kissed him.

“Finally.” Robert mumbled against his lips. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you all week.”

“I know.” Aaron sighed. “Things will slow down soon. When Adam is back at work.”

“And you think he’ll actually do any work? He’ll be showing people pictures of Melody all day long.”  
  
Aaron grinned.

“Well, she is a very cute baby.”

Robert nodded.

“That’s the Sugden side of the family. We’re all very cute.”

Aaron laughed and kissed Robert before reluctantly untangling himself from the other man’s arms.

“Come on, food’s getting cold. Is Liv home?”

“Let’s see.. Coat thrown over the back of the sofa, schoolbag dumped at the bottom of the stairs, shoes not on the shoe rack, dirty mugs on the counter.. I’d say she’s home. Either that or a hurricane hit our house.”

“You love her and don’t pretend you don’t.” Aaron said as he toed off his work boots and put them, along with Liv’s shoes, on the shoe rack Robert had insisted to buy when they’d moved into the cottage.  
  
_“Do we really need this?”_  
_“It’ll help keep the house clean and you won’t trip over shoes if you come home late.”_  
_“Or we can just look where we’re going. Or turn on the lights.”_  
_“You’ll never have to look for your work boots again.”_  
_“They’re always in the same place. A rack like that is kind of pointless. Why do you want one so badly?”_  
_“We had one at the farm when I was a kid, ok? It reminds me of home. All of our shoes on there, me secretly trying on my dad’s slippers while he was working and pretending I was all grown up..”_  
_Aaron smiled and kissed Robert. “Shoe rack it is then.”_  
  
“Liv! Food!” He called up the stairs and made his way back to the kitchen.

“Can Gabby stay?” Liv asked when they joined the two men in the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Sure. Robert got enough food to feed the whole of Yorkshire anyway.”

“Does your mum know you’re here though?” Robert asked. “I don’t want a repeat of last time when half the village was out looking for you and you were here hanging out with Liv.”  

“I texted her. And she replied. Do you want to see my phone?”

“No we believe you. Sit down, help yourself.” Aaron said as he put a plate in front of the teenager.  
  
As close as Robert and Liv had gotten over the past 2 years, the same couldn’t be said for Robert and Gabby. They tolerated each other most days, for Liv’s sake, but Aaron knew his husband was less than thrilled with the girl seemingly always being at their house.  
  
_“Why do they always have to hang out at our house? Gabby has a house of her own. A big house.”_  
_“With parents.”_  
_“So does Liv.”_  
_“But we get home later. They have the house to themselves for a few hours until we get home.”_  
_“Still. If I see that girl one more time this week, I’m going to start charging rent.”_  
_Aaron laughed._  
_“Look at it this way. What if she still hung out with Lachlan? You’d have to deal with him every day. And Chrissie picking up her precious Lucky at our house.”_  
_“Right. Maybe Gabby Thomas isn’t so bad.”_  
  
“So have you two figured out what you’re going to do next weekend?”

“Next weekend?” Liv asked.

“Yeah.. Robert and I’s wedding anniversary. We’re going away for a few days and you’re going to stay at Gabby’s.”  
  
“You told us yesterday you sorted it with Bernice.” Robert said. “Or would you rather stay at the pub with Chas?”

“No, no my mum’s fine with it.” Gabby said quickly. “Where are you two going again?”

“Brussels. Belgium. Just for a few days.” Aaron replied. “Are you sure your mum’s ok with Liv staying over?”

“Yeah it’s fine. She’s coming to pick me up later, you can ask her then.”

“I don’t understand why I need a babysit anyway. Why can’t I just stay here? It’s my house too.”

“We only moved in a few months ago. I don’t want to come home to a pile of smoking bricks where our house used to stand.” Robert told the girl.

Liv rolled her eyes at her brother in law but didn’t say anything. The four of them returned to their food until they suddenly heard scratching and whining coming from upstairs.

“What was that?” Aaron said, putting his fork down.

“I didn’t hear anything.” Liv replied.

“Neither did I. Must’ve been the wind or something.” Gabby added.  
  
Robert looked back and forth between the girls.

“Right. What are you two hiding? What’s going on?”

“Nothing! Why do you always think I’m up to something?” Liv protested.

“Because you usually are.”

Before Liv could reply the conversation was interrupted by loud barking coming from her room.

“Suppose that’s the wind too eh?” Aaron said and got up from the table and followed the sound. He opened Liv’s bedroom door and a dog jumped up at him, happy to be released from the bedroom.

“LIV!”

“I can explain!” the girl said as she ran up the stairs.

“Start talking.” Aaron said and sat down on Liv’s bed.

“I uh. WE.. found him. He’s been running around the village for a while.. and we feed him.. but it’s getting cold out now.. and they said it might snow.. so we brought him home.”  
  
“We.. You and Gabby?”

Liv nodded.

“We couldn’t take it to Gabby’s.. and our house is closer.”

“Everything alright up there?” Robert called up the stairs.

“Yeah we’ll be down in a sec.” Aaron replied before turning to his sister. “What were you thinking? He might belong to someone that’s worried sick right now.”

“He doesn’t! He doesn’t have a collar or anything.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“He’s not missing. I checked.”

“Checked? Checked how?”

“There’s websites..”

“What’s going on.. here?” Robert asked as he walked into Liv’s room. “And why is there a dog on your bed, Liv?”

“We rescued him.” Gabby, who had followed Robert upstairs, explained. “His name is Frodo. And he’s really friendly.”

“Rescued him from what?”

“It’s cold out tonight. He doesn’t have a home.”

“You could have told us, Liv. Instead of hiding him in your bedroom.” Aaron told his sister while absentmindedly petting the dog.

Liv shrugged.

“I didn’t know how you two would react.. and you weren’t home anyway.”

“You can’t hide a dog in your room, Liv.” Robert said, trying not to melt at the sight of his husband cuddling the dog. “You have to walk him and feed him.. we don’t even have dogfood.”

“Well.. actually..” Liv said and pulled a plastic bag out of her wardrobe.

“We went shopping for supplies after school.” Gabby explained.

“You two planned this?”

“Come on, Rob.” Liv pleaded. “He needs a home. We have plenty of room for him.”

“Aaron and I both work all day and you have school. Who’s going to walk him during the day then? And take care of him?”

“I.. uh.. maybe he can stay at the pub?”

“Yeah Chas is going to love that.”

“Ok, enough. There is nothing we can do tonight so let’s just.. go back downstairs and eat, yeah?” Aaron said, getting up from the bed, the dog following him instantly. “We’ll take him to Paddy in the morning.”

***  
“Manchester?” Robert asked his husband the next morning. “You have to go to Manchester?”

“It’s for work. It’s a good deal.” Aaron shrugged.

“What about him?” Robert asked, and nodded at the dog who was happily snoozing on their sofa.

“You and Liv can take him to Paddy can’t you?”

“And have Paddy put me down instead?”

“You’re not having him put down!” Liv interrupted. “There’s nothing wrong with him! He just needs a home.”

“Nobody is putting anyone down, ok? Just calm down.”

“If I give you money will you take him to Paddy on your own?” Robert suggested. “He still hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Aaron told his husband. “He was at the wedding.. and he even came to your birthday party.”

“He stayed for half an hour and got me a bottle of wine that I know you told him to get.”

“Still. Progress.” Aaron said and put his jacket on. “I have to go now, I’ll text you when I’m on my way home. Let me know what Paddy says.” He said and kissed first Robert and then Liv and left.  
  
***  
  
“Mister Sugden-Dingle with.. Frodo?” Paddy said, walking out of his office and into the waiting room of his clinic.

“Hi Paddy.” Robert said, getting up from his seat.

“Oh.. uh.. hello. I uhm.. wasn’t expecting you.”

“Aaron is Dingle-Sugden.”

“Right. Yes. Of course. What can I do for you?”

“Liv and Gabby found this dog last night. They’re convinced it’s a stray but we wanted to make sure there’s no owner out there looking for him.”

Paddy nodded.

“I’ll get the scanner, see if he has a microchip. Put him on the table for me will you?”

A few minutes later Paddy returned and moved the scanner over the dog’s back and neck.

“And?”

“Nothing. It would have picked it up if there was a chip.”

“Right.”

“He looks fairly young.” Paddy commented as he further examined the dog. “And he’s friendlier than most of my other patients.”

“So he belongs to someone?”

“Possibly.”

“How do we figure that out for sure?”

“I can take some photos. We can put them on the website, see if someone comes forward.”

Robert nodded.

“What are the chances of that happening? That an owner turns up.”

“Well.. he doesn’t have a chip.. and he looks fairly healthy.. I’d say he’s about 2-3 years old. Seems used to being around humans..”

“The girls bought the collar and lead. He doesn’t like walking on the lead though. And he practically inhaled the food the girls bought him last night.”

“Housetrained?”

“Probably not but no accidents so far.”

“If nobody comes forward, will you keep it?”

“If my husband has any say in it.. yes.”  
  
***

“Frodo, come here.” Aaron yelled and smiled as the dog came running towards him. “Good boy.”

It had been about a month since Liv and Gabby had brought the dog home and nobody had come forward. Secretly both Aaron and Robert were as happy about that as Liv was. He had taking up running again, with Frodo, and some mornings Robert joined them.  
While the three of them had agreed he officially belonged to Liv, Frodo had his own bed in both her bedroom and his and Robert’s and more toys than he could ever play with. While Liv was at school, Frodo went with Aaron to the scrapyard, where he had his own bed in the portacabin. Around lunchtime Robert would usually stop by and they’d go for a long walk with Frodo together.

“You know, I’m beginning to wonder if you love that dog more than me.” Robert joked, slipping an arm around his husband’s waist.

“Says the man who slept with his knees to his chest last night because he didn’t want to disturb the dog.” Aaron teased. “Soft lad.”


End file.
